Over the past two weeks, our bloggers bought gas in Coke bottles in Manila, drank water from plastic bags in Accra and toured a dump in Manila. Here are some of the photos they took along the way.

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Working late in Kibera. Youth unemployment is endemic in Nairobi, sending young people flooding into the informal sector, often without the skills to thrive there.

A staffer for the Kenya Red Cross monitors tweets for emergency calls. In a country where the “911” system doesn’t work, residents turn to Twitter when they need an ambulance.

Gasoline in soda bottles on a roadside in Manila. People sell fuel like this out of their driveways to motorists who are far from formal gas stations.

Marina Beach in Chennai on a weekend. Beach pollution has become a major problem in the city, as residents pump their sewage directly into the ocean.

Piles of garbage soak in the rain. In Manila, scavengers work at dumpsites looking for recyclables they can sell at a profit.